Archive for August, 2012

The Pacific Northwest on both sides of the border is blessed with an enormous number of traditional boats of all descriptions. The wonderful craft – both yachts and workboats – are cared for by their owners and a supportive community of boatyards, trades people, and admirers. We are also fortunate to have some amazing maritime non-profit organizations throughout the region, including the Maritime Museum of BC, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Foundation, SALTS, Seattle Centre for Wooden Boats, Cowichan Bay Maritime Centre, Victoria Tall Ships Society, Silva Bay Shipyard School and the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding to name a few. These dedicated organizations provide opportunities for education, training, skills development and economic growth in our communities. The boat owners and those that support them are why we are still celebrating our maritime heritage after 35 years. Enjoy this year’s Victoria Classic Boat Festival from August 31 through September 2, 2012 in Victoria’s beautiful Inner Harbour.

From August 23 – September 2, you can experience 11 days of amazing live comedy, drama, dance, spoken word, musicals and physical theatre – over 370 performances in 9 venues. Fringe-going is easy, fun and slightly addictive. Once you start, you won’t want to stop! It’s really the best part of the summer.

What is the Victoria Fringe?

The Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival is one of the oldest Fringe Festivals in Canada! Intrepid Theatre hosts the festival, which features over 55 productions from all over the world in various venues in downtown Victoria. Tickets are cheep-cheep, and volunteering is a huge part of this fun, awesome community event.

This year, the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival is being held on August 17, 18 and 19th. It started in 1995 as a single day event with 20 paddling teams, held after the sport was introduced to the city during the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria. The event has since transformed into a wildly successful three day, two night festival, bringing together 90 teams, 2,400 paddlers, and 80,000 spectators, hosting one of the only dragon boat races courses in North America to take place in a working harbour.

2012 is also the year of the water dragon in the Chinese calendar, a rare event that only occurs every 60 years. Dragons symbolize power and growth and are a prominent theme of the festival.

Check out Dragon Boat Festival website for more information on this fun spectator event.